ICYMI: Apple’s AI Push to Hinge on Robots, Security, Lifelike Siri

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2:49We want to get to Apple. Headline crossing just a moment ago. Apple plotting its AI comeback, artificial intelligence, with an ambitious slate of new devices, including robots and a lifelike version of Siri. There's a lot more. Let's just get to the guy who knows this company and put out this story. Here's our own Mark Gurman. He's Bloomberg News Managing Editor for Global Consumer Tech. He's out there on the West Coast. All right. Walk us through your exclusive, what did you learn about what AI is, AI, Apple is up to when it comes to AI, Mark? So the conventional wisdom is that Apple is lagging right now.

3:25It has no future. The product pipeline is very limited. They're struggling in AI. The world is ending and Tim Cook should be fired as CEO. I think I came on here a few weeks ago to tell you that there's no way Tim Cook is going anywhere. And it is true that they are struggling terribly in AI. But at the end of the day, Apple is a hardware company, and they have been planning this big new hardware pipeline. At the center of it is robotics, a push into smart home and home security, multiple new versions of Siri, and a slew of other devices from smart glasses to headsets to foldables. The centerpiece of the renewed AI hardware strategy is a tabletop robot that's coming in 2027 sometime around then this is a device that would sit on your desk sit in your kitchen sit in your living room it would have an ipad like display with sensors and a robotic arm and the arm would be able to push the display around the room to follow people to look at you to summon you or be summoned by you help you get work done throughout the day the idea is to bring artificial intelligence to life in a way that hardware companies have not done so before, blending the AI with hardware manipulation and robotics.

4:43The company is also working on a HomePod with a screen for next year. This is a variation of that robotic device. This would not have the robotic arm, but would have a similar display and functionality. There's also several new versions of Siri in the works. There's a redesigned Siri visually for the iPhone, the iPad, and the Mac. There's new underpinnings to that Siri. We've talked about that. Apple has signaled that. This is a revamped of Siri coming in the spring. There's also a new visual version of Siri for home devices. It uses something similar to Microsoft Clippy from 20, 30 years ago.

5:17Oh, I remember Clippy. That virtual assistant. Yep. And then you also, I know there's a lot, have a push into home security with a new home security camera system. Taps into a home doorbell as well. This would compete with Ring and Nest and ADT and other companies and also serve as the sensors at the center of a home automation strategy. So, Mark, you gave us a lot to think about. We have a couple of minutes left with you. We don't have a crystal ball, but we have Mark Gurman, which is the next best thing. If there is sort of a single device in here that's iPhone-like in the sense of it being the center of the universe for Apple, does one of them stick out to you as that?

5:57I don't think the iPhone in the next five to 10 years is going to go away as the center of the universe. What I do think is going to happen is the next generation of ecosystems, you know, instead of being built around the phone and the cloud, it's going to be built around AI. So all the devices, right, including the phone, are going to get demoted a bit. And AI is going to become the center of the universe. And so you're going to have your phone, your home devices, your earbuds, your glasses, your watch, your computer, etc. And those are all going to be built around AI as the center, moving away from the phone and the cloud as the center.

6:33So the prototype's all ready to go. They're getting up the assembly lines and they're going to hit the stores, right? They're all ready to go or not yet. In terms of these devices, everything that I'm talking about today, those are mostly forward looking. We're talking about things coming out 26, 27. There's a mention in the story of a robotic arm for retail stores and manufacturing. That's probably five to seven years away. So we're talking 2030s there. I mentioned the foldable iPad Mac device. That's going to be at the end of this decade. The foldable iPhone is going to be at the end of next year.

7:08This year in September, a little less than a month from now, Apple is going to introduce its first redesigned iPhone in several years. This is the iPhone 17 line, also the slimmed down iPhone, new AirPods, a new Apple Watch Ultra with a slightly larger display and satellite connectivity for hikers. So in the near term, some good stuff. In the long term, some much cooler stuff. You know, the hardware that you've highlighted is nothing without the software, Mark. And you've documented the struggles that Apple has had when it comes to its own work with AI software, talking about potential acquisitions.

7:43Can Apple pull off this hardware with the way the software is now? Yes. So as I mentioned in the story, they're looking at two directions for revamping the underpinnings of Siri. One is called Linwood and one is called Glenwood. Linwood is using upgraded versions of the company's own internal foundation models. That's the team that Meta has been poaching a bunch of people from, including the head of the team. We talked about this a few weeks ago. Glenwood is using a third-party provider to rebuild Siri. So building Siri around models from a third party. And obviously third parties like Anthropic, like OpenAI, like Google, they've proven out their models.

8:24They work extraordinarily well. And so Apple's backup plan essentially is to go external till they're able to get their internal models up to snuff. And honestly, that makes a lot of sense. All right. Going to leave it there. Mark, Mark, thank you so much. Of course, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman joining us with the latest on his exclusive on Apple. Mark is Bloomberg News Managing Editor for Global Consumer Tech. He's out there on the West Coast. Shares of Apple have been as high as 2.3 percent. Intraday high rising on Mark's story. The stock still up, but now only a gain of about 1.4 percent. But we have seen Apple shares popping since August 5th.

9:03So we have seen a move in a big way to the upside for Apple over the last week or so. So interesting reporter. Check it out. It's on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg.com.

9:14When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering, and claims experience. Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation.

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10:22This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR. Fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com.

11:28at business.optum.com.